Earlier this year, Hyderabad’s Kalakriti Art Gallery moved to a new premises with more room to host art and cultural events. Now, it is the turn of Kadari Art Gallery to open new viewing rooms at its existing premises in Jubilee Hills. While both these galleries strengthened their digital presence during the pandemic, they also sensed an increased interest among art lovers in Hyderabad to engage with real-time art.
Kadari was founded in 1991 as Rajeshwar Rao Art Gallery by Supraja Rao, in memory of her father. An interior designer, Supraja’s love for design and art bolstered the growth of her design venture and the art gallery over the years. In 2019, Rajeshwar Rao Art Gallery was relaunched as Kadari.
Scope for expansion
During the pandemic, Supraja noticed the keen interest in art among home-bound, well-heeled clientele. “ With viewing artworks online, there was an increased interest to visit the gallery and engage with art. That partly fuelled the expansion,” says Supraja.
The new viewing rooms at the gallery were inaugurated recently with the show titled I think you should know this by Kinetics, which comprises emerging artists who are alumni of the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai. Kadari also threw open a new collection of watercolour paintings by reputed Hyderabad artist A Rajeswara Rao (not to be confused with Supraja Rao’s late father).
The contemporary, postmodern approach to art by Kinetics is evident in its latest exhibition. One of the standout pieces is a clever paper and wood installation by Yuvan Bothisathuvar, playing with different colours to give the viewer the impression of the artwork changing from warm red tones to cool blue notes as one moves from one side of the other. Titled The Mask, the artwork alludes to how humans change colours while going through emotional upheavals.
Abstract patterns on railway tickets by Sunil Sree, Dilip Kumar Kesavan’s work that appears to be abstract but conceals figurative elements, a series of photographs of birds by Aneesh Kalode Rajan that resemble minute pencil sketches, give the exhibition an element of intrigue.
The group show by Kinetics, also featuring works of Gurunathan Govindan, Kumaresan Selvaraj, Saravanan Parasuraman, Suresh Kumar P and Yuvraj Velu, factors in the need to make art more engaging for real-time viewing.
The solo show of recent works by A Rajeswara Rao titled Of Desires and Destinations is a humorous social commentary. Rao’s watercolours are multi-layered and have gone through several washes to make them appear almost like aqua tint graphic prints. The play of light and shadow comes to the fore in the paintings where he depicts people visiting castles and palaces in a bid to rediscover themselves through travel. Some of the paintings done during the pandemic have images of men, women and even monkeys with masks, attempting to reconnect with their roots in their farms or farmhouses.
Both exhibitions are on view till November 8 at Kadari Art Gallery, Road No.14, Jubilee Hills.
Published - October 13, 2021 12:49 pm IST
